


A Game That Two Can Play

by Jade_Waters



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating, Poetry, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:59:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak and Bashir go to dinner. As they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game That Two Can Play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Courtesy, armor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/780603) by [bmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse). 



> After reading bmouse's lovely "Courtesy, armor" fic, I really wanted the dinner to happen, so here is my suggested third chapter.
> 
> Very many thanks to bmouse for her permission to post - she is a wonderful writer and I highly recommend all of her fics. <3

_"Come to dinner as you are?”_ the little text on his padd reads. It’s almost a demand, except for that question mark giving away the doctor’s uncertainty. Sometimes, Garak thinks, his courtesy edges on insecurity, mixing strangely with his arrogance. Garak straightens out across his table a lovely bolt of new Andorian modal, soft and warm and swirling blue.

It’s been two hours since the doctor - and that lovely engineer - left his shop. Has it taken that long for Bashir to find his words? Or perhaps he’s simply been busy. He is Chief Medical Officer, after all. Not a simple tailor. Garak smiles to himself as he sets a few pins as markers in his fabric.

Then there is the content of the inquiry to consider. _As I am,_ Garak thinks. With his teeth sharp and his forehead blue and the rest of him rather chilled? What difference should that make to the doctor? He shakes his head: this was a show for one person, and it’s finished now. He’s certainly not about to parade around the Promenade - let alone Quark’s! - like this. No. He’s already hidden away his extra height, pulled his shoulders back up, tucked his chin so he looks properly nonthreatening again. _Safe_ , his body language projects, _Old, slow, not dangerous at all._ This is as it should be.

_“I’ve a new style of suit I was hoping to show off this evening - what better way to advertise my work than by wearing it?”_ he writes back.

As for the modal, he cuts a very straight line.  
  


*  
  
He’s late. Of course he’s late, he’s always running late for one godawful reason or another. It’s not that he doesn’t know what time it is - he knows _exactly_ what time it is all the time - but he _does_ get rather distracted and in this case maybe it’s for the best that Jadzia had brought him that unidentified sample from Gamma Quadrant sector Epsilon, system Kepler-4, since it has kept him from thinking too much about Garak’s typically evasive refusal of his request.

Not that he hasn’t thought about it at least a little. Certainly, even as he dodges a pair of Vulcans on the Promenade (Vulcans? How unusual), he can’t help but think, _“He’s covered himself up again, why is it ok to show off for that woman but not for me? Not even for a moment? Would he still have refused if we’d been meeting in private? Would he ever agree to meet anywhere but where everyone can see us?”_

And then he's there.

Two glasses of Andorian ale glint blue in the low light of Quark’s as Bashir takes his seat, apologizing for being late, but Garak holds up a hand, “I hope you don’t mind, Doctor, but I’ve been craving Andorian lately and it’s rather busy this evening, so for efficiency’s sake, I put in an order for the both of us. If you object I’m sure we can change it.”  
  
It’s unusual, sure, (why Andorian?) but maybe it serves him right for not being here early, so he waves a hand, “It’s fine, you know I’ll eat anything.”

Garak teases him about his atrocious eating habits, but Bashir is busy noticing his friend has indeed tucked himself away again, or maybe it’s better to say he’s changed costumes. He’s fine - he’s always fine, with just that hint of adventure beneath his teasing smile - but the danger is gone, the _alien_ is gone, safely hidden beneath a plump suit (a lovely blue to match his eyes - not important, pay attention), and tight smiles and careful movements.

Still, even plain, simple, not-quite-so-stunning Garak tunes Bashir’s staticy mind, gives shape to his scattered thoughts, until he is so, _so_ focused. That is, in part, what he’s here for: the clarity of thought which only comes with challenges and puzzles and problems that require his attention. Garak demands this focus, but also helps him create it, and so for once in his life, Bashir doesn’t feel like a babbling idiot when he’s speaking.  
  


*

The doctor’s on a different track tonight than he’d expected. He hasn’t inquired about his Cardassian guest, hasn’t even implied that Garak’s been up to anything suspicious.   
  
Instead they talk about poetry, and the value of epiphany. Is a single breath enough to convey real meaning? Bashir, of course, argues that it is, “The limitation forces the speaker to say what he or she means, to strip away any distracting language, so all that’s left is the truth or -” when Garak rolls his eyes at the word, “At least what they feel to be the truth.”  
  
“But what good is that?” Garak retorts, stabbing the air with his fork, “An individual’s momentary perception of reality! Doctor, what meaning can be found in such a little flicker of half-composed thought?”

Bashir takes a moment to order his argument, chewing (for once) and swallowing a bite of his redbat, but then he comes fully armed, “Garak, society is made of individuals. You’re always begrudging individuality, but what is society if not the compilation of individual thoughts and perceptions? In this book you lent me, each individual poem may not say much - although I would argue at least a few of them do - but taken together they reveal patterns of these students’ lives: worries about parental expectations and class work, hope for personal achievement, the culture of romantic love among young Cardassians. This collection is not so different from a series of snapshots: through individuals, I come to understand the whole.”  
  
The doctor’s learning to play on his preference for society over the individual, and Garak finds himself so pleased to see his friend using it against him that he smiles and answers, “Well said, Doctor!”  
  
But, rather unexpectedly, the doctor falters, frowns slightly, flicks his eyes away.  Garak has miscalculated something.   
  


*

As they’ve been debating over dinner, Bashir has noticed that not all of Garak is quite tucked back into his usual place. There is still a smudge of blue where his make up didn’t quite wash off - was it left intentionally, a teasing reminder? Garak’s scales still pick up the light in a way he didn’t realize they could, his hair still looks smoother and softer than usual. He has catalogued each of these, filed them away for later review.  
  
But then Garak smiles, and Bashir thinks he’s genuinely pleased, but there are no teeth showing in this smile and now he knows that Garak can be something else entirely and he’s not sure -   
  
Bashir pauses long enough that Garak’s about to ask if he’s alright when he opens his mouth and brings his own breath poem into existence:  
  
“Tell me, friend,   
Is it my lack of scales,  
Or lack of skills in conversation,  
Which keep your teeth hidden?”  
  
Garak eyes him with surprise, sets down his silverware as he turns Bashir’s words over in his mind.

*

Although Bashir has missed the subterfuge of his encounter with the engineer entirely, he’s read Garak’s performance perfectly. And taken it personally, it seems. _I’ve read it all wrong,_ Garak thinks. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t there to read before. He can’t help but wonder, briefly, about the potential for a breath to trigger epiphany in the listener.

He answers carefully, but to the point, “She was only a momentary diversion, Doctor.”  
  
“That was hardly all,” Bashir accuses, and there’s more bite in it than he expected. The way the doctor’s mind jumps, can draw full pictures from a glimpse, reminds Garak that there is more to his friend than he has yet discovered.

Still, even in this error, Garak sees a whole new line of possibilities open up before him. The good Dr. Bashir is jealous: what a pleasant surprise. Now, perhaps, if he is careful, they can play a new game they will both enjoy. A game he’s held purely in the realm of fantasy until this moment, and is still wary of bringing out. But hadn’t he, after all, decided that today he is allowed to be fanciful? “My dear doctor,” he soothes, “She was a known variable, easily predicted and easily played. You are no such thing.”  
  
“You play me all the time,” Bashir counters.   
  
Garak’s ready, though, and holds up a finger, “But not so easily! You’re a puzzle to me, with alien cues and cultural pitfalls and foreign turns of phrase. For her, I dressed prettily. For you... I practice.” To press an edge into his flattery, he gives Bashir a smile with just a hint of the teeth he asked for.  
  
Bashir is rightly wary, but the concession of teeth seems to help as he puffs out a breath, lets the tension go from his shoulders. He looks down, toys with the food left on his plate, and Garak feels that odd twinge the doctor sometimes draws out of him.  
  
Garak keeps talking (it’s what he’s good at, after all), “The dance between us flowed easily, but it’s simple, well-rehearsed. You and I misstep, but the result is much more worth the effort, don’t you think?”

Bashir looks up through his dark eyelashes, smiles back, warming to the game. He leans in, that little flush back on his cheeks and now Garak knows it’s not embarrassment at all as he whispers, conspiratorial, “Do you think we’ll ever get this dance of ours right?”  
  
Garak glances around to make sure the Ferengi waiters are minding other people’s business before he leans in as well. He takes his dear friend’s hand and turns it up on the table, lays his own down flat against it, palm to palm. “Oh,” he says, smiling a full, sharp smile not from any repertoire but just for the doctor, his eyes twinkling as he meets Bashir’s, “I do believe we’re getting better all the time.”


End file.
